Free Republic

AT LEAST one person has been killed and 12 more are injured after a Syrian asylum seeker blew himself outside a wine bar in Germany. The attack took place in Ansbach, near Nuremburg, after the 27-year-old was denied access to the nearby Ansbach Open music festival, according to Germany's interior minister Joachim Herrmann. Hermann said the suspect, who was known to police, had lived in Germany for two years but was denied asylum in the country a year ago. He said it is unclear if the suspect intended to kill others or just himself but said he had “tried to...

Local southern leaders yesterday appealed for calm and urged authorities not to take rash action after a monk was hacked to death and two temple boys were killed and their bodies burned yesterday in a raid on a Buddhist temple in Pattani. Elsewhere in the ravaged region, five more people, including two soldiers, were also killed. Nimu Makaje, deputy chairman of Yala Islamic Committee, believes the temple raiders wanted to provoke a violent reaction from the government. ``State authorities must exercise utmost patience and be calm. ``They should stick to peaceful efforts to win the hearts and minds of local...

A Muslim cleric in Århus demands that daily newspaper Jyllands-Posten apologises for publishing cartoons featuring the prophet Mohammed Daily newspaper Jyllands-Posten is facing accusations that it deliberately provoked and insulted Muslims by publishing twelve cartoons featuring the prophet Mohammed. The newspaper urged cartoonists to send in drawings of the prophet, after an author complained that nobody dared to illustrate his book on Mohammed. The author claimed that illustrators feared that extremist Muslims would find it sacrilegious to break the Islamic ban on depicting Mohammed. Twelve illustrators heeded the newspaper's call, and sent in cartoons of the prophet, which were published...